Rafa Benitez - The Destroyer of Teams

[barcetia]

Well admittedly they aren't currently, but you can't say they haven't been top historically. And to add, being shit the past couple of seasons has a lot more to do with the ex-owners than it does with Rafa. Though Rafa made some terrible decisions in the transfer market (my main problem with him along with man management/relations) so he's not off the hook.

Bold part. What more left is there for a manager? Tactician is sooo overrated nowadays.. which he clearly isen't because he left a bucket load of space for Tottenham which is the dumbest thing to do. The only way to play against tottenham if you have a slow backline is to play deep, which he didn't do. hence why maicon got *****

 

[Beast]

How can you criticise Benitez' reign at Liverpool? He put Liverpool back to where they belong, at the top in Europe.

Came in 2004, with a relatively poor squad, with one or 2 very good players, aka Gerrard and Owen. (Owen was sold at the right time, with 1 year left on his contract, and his value decreased when he went to Real, ending up in Newcastle).
.

I stopped reading after this
Do you know what you are talking about ?

is buying Owen for 8 Mil and selling him for 18 Million a year later is a decrease in value ?
selling a player with a year left in his contract for peanuts is not the right time .. it's stupidity that he was left without renewing ..
but thanks for the 10 Mil profit ..we appreciate it

In relative terms my friend. I'd have Rafa over Hodgson any day of the week.

Plus I don't want Guus Hiddink who will only stay for 5 minutes before fucking off of Capello who is too old now. Though of course I am a Capello lover. But we need a young manager, who is relatively fresh and can be our manager for the long term.

Someone like Low or Sanchez Flores.

You waited for so many years under Rafa but you can't wait for Roy for 2 month..
what kind of fan are you Eddie ?
should i dig your "I'm quitting " post ? .. now Rafa is god in comparison to a man who is still working on Rafa disaster state of affairs in Liverpool
Liverpool reached rock bottom last season and u know that under your (now i want him back ) Rafa.. summer was a transitional period with your main players wanting out of the club , didn't know if you will be relegated or go bust till 2 weeks ago ..

you know what the problem is ? Roy isn't a good liar as Rafa .. he didn't sell excuses like Rafa would have done.. if Rafa was in charge you would all be blaming H&G for the bad start and taking Rafa out of the occasion

You know you get what you deserve.. i'd say even our fickle Madridistas are better supporters than Liverpool @ the moment .. at least we are not blind

 

[AnfieldEd]

Hodgson has proven with his off the field antics and dealing with the media that he hasn't got what it takes to manage us.

I didn't wait years for Rafa to go, it was only last year that I thought it was time for a change, but he will always have my respect for what he did for us. From 04-08 I was delighted with Rafa as manager. Rafa is God in comparison to Hodgson and has a much better tactical brain plus he doesn't give in to player power unlike Hodgson - we all know Gerrard and carra rules the roost in that relationship.

We did reach rock bottom because in most part of our idiotic owners, whilst Rafa had to take some of the blame for his decision making in games, his hand was forced in the transfer market. Gerrard and Carra DID want Rafa out - we all know this and I am not denying this at all. I put this down to the idiot Gerrard listening to his mates in the media too much and carra wanting to keep his place in the first team which was in jeopardy if rafa stayed.

I doubt very much that Rafa would have been dumb enough to loan out Aquilani and Insua or waste £5m on Konchesky and £4m on Poulsen for a start. Thus I doubt we'd have started so poorly. Every manager is a liar - it is a necessity of the job. You undermine the effect H&G had on us you really do.

Fickle Madridistas get everything on a plate and are guaranteed to know their club will always finish in the top 2 - my heart bleeds for them.

 

[Lemmi]

Aquilani going is obviously a H&G move, they wouldnt free up funds until his wages could be freed. I'm sure Hodgson would have refused to have him as part of his squad..

Your whole argument is based on hearsay, Gerrard worried for his first team place Displaced by who? Lucas? That would have been enough reason to get him outright.

The fact you are backtracking so fast on Hodgson now that results are improving is laughable, the fact you have convinced yourself that his media handling is now ample justification for his dismissal is pretty sad.

You have just come out of one of the biggest crisis' in the clubs history off the pitch, if you don't think that had an effect then do get real.

 

[La Furia]

It's amazing how none of these Liverpool fans have a legitimate response for Jatin that we haven't heard hundreds of times before.

Bravo J.

Bold part. What more left is there for a manager? Tactician is sooo overrated nowadays.. which he clearly isen't because he left a bucket load of space for Tottenham which is the dumbest thing to do. The only way to play against tottenham if you have a slow backline is to play deep, which he didn't do. hence why maicon got raped

Tactics are important but they can easily be overshadowed, such as when your arrogance and terrible man management skills overshadow anything positive.

Rafa has certain tactical ability, his improvements on Cuper's system at Valencia are proof of this (even if he did plenty of damage there behind the scenes), but at Liverpool he was a trainwreck as much as that one fluke CL will be brought up time and time again.

 

[Barcaman]

What damage? His job with Valencia was brilliant. Financially: Valencia under Benitez spent 12 million euros on signings. That's in 3 years.
As for the succeses on the pitch.. Valencia only won the league 6 times in 80 years. Benitez got them 1/3 of those trophies in only 3 years.

 

[Rohit]

Aquilani going is obviously a H&G move, they wouldnt free up funds until his wages could be freed. I'm sure Hodgson would have refused to have him as part of his squad..

Your whole argument is based on hearsay, Gerrard worried for his first team place Displaced by who? Lucas? That would have been enough reason to get him outright.

The fact you are backtracking so fast on Hodgson now that results are improving is laughable, the fact you have convinced yourself that his media handling is now ample justification for his dismissal is pretty sad.

You have just come out of one of the biggest crisis' in the clubs history off the pitch, if you don't think that had an effect then do get real.

Actually if you read is post he said carraghers place was under threat no gerrard. Seeing as carra has aged and he knows and is unable to play a high line which agger and skrtel can do, and carra has mention in his book he will not be on the bench for no one. Within him being a local lad and a so called legend he holds alot of power in the media and dressing room and he used that in his advantage to remove rafa and get hodgson someone who would be a yes man to carra. Gerrard on the other hand was probably going along with carra in that an english manager would be better as hed do what they want hench the signing of joe cole who wanted to play of the striker and gerrard wanted to play midfield. When in reality hodgson aswell as most fans realised joe cole doesnt have the brain or touch to play as a trequartista as gerrard has. The loaning of aquilani was down to hodgson it would have made sense being a H+G move, however the signing of meireles goes against that and that of paul konchesky and poulsen. This is becuase aquilani was on around 60k meireles is probably on that now and as was mascherano and poulsen is suggested to be on around that too. Insua was on around a basic salary of 25-30k while konchesky is on around 50-60k plus the signing of the fee which was around 4million plus 2 youth players both rated 750k each even though a year before we rejected a 3 million bid for dalle valle. Another reason which suggests hodgson instigated the aquilani loan was the fact that we added a buy-out clause for 13million pounds which is a joke and why would H+G care about recouping aquilanis transfer fee they werent going to be here past november. If H+G cared so much about wages they wouldnt have allowed joe cole to sign for 90k a week plus a 6 mill sign on fee.

 

[AnfieldEd]

It's amazing how none of these Liverpool fans have a legitimate response for Jatin that we haven't heard hundreds of times before.

Bravo J.



Tactics are important but they can easily be overshadowed, such as when your arrogance and terrible man management skills overshadow anything positive.

Rafa has certain tactical ability, his improvements on Cuper's system at Valencia are proof of this (even if he did plenty of damage there behind the scenes), but at Liverpool he was a trainwreck as much as that one fluke CL will be brought up time and time again.

What a surprise you agree with HoF seeing as you suck his balls

 

[House of Flies]

What a surprise you agree with HoF seeing as you suck his balls

Someone is a bit edgy. But still, there is no need to be so harsh

 

[Trequartista]

Can you make a similar one for Arsene Finger?

 

[Fourteen]

Someone is a bit edgy. But still, there is no need to be so harsh

Why are you not offended by that? Nolan is terrible at sucking balls.

 

[House of Flies]

Why are you not offended by that? Nolan is terrible at sucking balls.

you had a romp in the hay with nolan too? Geeze, what a swingin marriage.

But no, Edward is a bit jealous because his "wife" wouldnt go any where close to it

 

[Cule Angles]

"Destroyer of clubs". How exactly did he destroy Valencia? 2 La Liga titles after 30 years.
I admit he did fairly poor with Liverpool. Some bad signings but still got them their CL.
He's surely not a likable character but it's just another hate article full of rubbish.

Totally agree, Valencia's plight is well documented and has little or nothing to do with Benitez. VCF's problems stem from the boardroom and their kamikaze attitude to spending, it's part of a chairman or president's job to say "no" to a manager when he wants more money. Rafa did well at the Mestalla and if I'm not mistaken secured a UEFA cup too before he left.

 

[Sergio]

Lecce 1 - 1 Inter

Starting to look like Oliver Hardy isn't going to get that piano up the stairs.

 

[MasonRed4]

I stopped reading after this
Do you know what you are talking about ?

is buying Owen for 8 Mil and selling him for 18 Million a year later is a decrease in value ?
selling a player with a year left in his contract for peanuts is not the right time .. it's stupidity that he was left without renewing ..
but thanks for the 10 Mil profit ..we appreciate it

Maybe that wasnt the best way to put it. Owen had 1 year left on his contract and was adamant that he wanted to leave, so Benitez sold him for £8mil, he would have left for free the year after, correct?. The year after, half the player he was at Liverpool, he went to Newcastle for £18mil. You can't seriously take the price Newcastle paid for him as a realistic valuation, it's Newcastle afterall. Benitez got rid of him at the right time, and cries for him to come back to Liverpool, Benitez backed his judgement and signed this lad called Fernando Torres, I'll leave it to you to decide who you'd prefer in your side.

In terms of Hodgson, he has shown in the media that his off the field antics are embarrasing. Benitez was building Liverpool for the future. Hodgsons appointment was to sugarcoat the bad image of G & H in the media. Afterall, who better to come in than Hodgson, manager of the year who took little Fulham to the Europa league final. He is there for the short term, and is not the right man to build for the future. His tactics are defensive, press conferences are embarrasing and his signings have been awful.

You can say Benitez made some terrible buys, which is fair enough, but what he did, in the 2008/2009 season, was build a starting 11 that was capable of winning the league and challenging at the top. Maybe not a squad, but a first team. Liverpool lost Alonso in the summer and were given little funds to replace. Sure you can see it as wasting £20mil on Aquilani, but injuries plagued his season. Liverpool didn't start off the season too bad, with highlights including beating United 2-0. A season hit by injuries and off the field antics pushed Benitez into a scapegoat situation and yes, maybe it was time for him to go, but you can't say it wouldn't have been different if he had a fully fit squad and the funds to buy suitable replacements.